Courage

I find that absolutely extraordinary. The vanity of it, the self-love and self-absorption, the misdirection, the narcissism, the callousness – it’s just staggering. Courage! Courage forsooth! What courage?! The subject here is six decades of gross abuse and exploitation of generation after generation of children by adult nuns and priests; what does that have to do with courage?! It doesn’t take courage for a grown-up well-fed strong adult to bully and starve and torture and shame a child. On the contrary, as we all know, or ought to, large strong people tormenting smaller weaker people is the very opposite of courage. The Catholic church condoned and concealed this kind of behavior for decade after decade after decade – it is much too late for it to talk about its own courage now. It’s also completely beside the point and inappropriate, since the Catholic church is not the victim here: the church is the ruthless savage heartless squalid perpetrator. This is absolutely not the moment for it to be patting itself on the back for finally, under duress, kicking and screaming, and with a guarantee of no names named and thus no prosecutions, being exposed by an independent report. Where does the courage enter into it? The report was not the Church’s idea or its doing; the Church pulled the sharpest teeth from the report with a lawsuit; the report has now appeared and the Church stands exposed as having run a hideous child-torture factory for a century and a half. Some clergy are now – now that there is no escaping it – saying that it was all very naughty. Is that the courage Vincent is talking about? Just saying, in response to a report, ‘Ah yes, that was bad’? Does it not occur to him that courage would have been to do something about it while it was still going on? Or, failing that, does it not occur to him that he should not be wasting his sympathy on the perpetrators right now?

Well it probably does now that people are pointing it out to him, but it didn’t occur to him last night, and that tells you a lot about the terrible vanity and self-satisfaction of the clerical mind. This is interesting because part of the Catholic church’s self-image at this time is that it is the great defender of the weak and vulnerable and disregarded – such as the aborted fetus and the comatose adult in a permanent vegetative state. Well – where was its concern and compassion for the weak and vulnerable and disregarded in Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s and up through the 1980s?

Really – where was it? You can’t get much more weak and vulnerable and disregarded than a baby or toddler who is forcibly taken from its mother and imprisoned in a brutal institution and then treated like shit for 14 or 16 years. Can you? Yet those are the very people that the Catholic church in Ireland singled out for savage punishment, deprivation of every kind, and a constant barrage of insults and humiliation. They were told their mothers were dead, or that they didn’t want them. They were put to work farming or making rosaries, and the church pocketed the money made.

So talking about courage now is both absurd and disgusting. It reminds me of what Hannah Arendt says about Himmler in Eichmann in Jerusalem:

The member of the Nazi hierarchy most gifted at solving problems of conscience was Himmler. He coined slogans…catch phrases which Eichmann called ‘winged words’ and the judges ’empty talk’…Eichmann remembered only one of them and kept repeating it: “These are battles which future generations will not have to fight again,” alluding to the “battles” against women, children, old people, and other “useless mouths.”

It’s repulsively understandable, what the archbishop said. He was thinking about people like him – colleagues – fellow clerics. He was sympathizing with their situation. But that’s just what’s so repulsive. They’re not the victims here, just as Himmler and Eichmann were not the victims in Nazi Germany. The archbishop shouldn’t be worrying about people like him, because he should be so frantic with grief and shame at what was done to some thirty thousand children that he can’t think about anything else. But he’s not – he’s not the least bit frantic with grief and shame – he has the presence of mind and the placid quotidian selfishness to think about the people he’s familiar with.

So next time a Catholic starts ranting about the fetus, you just start intoning ‘Artane, Goldenbridge, Letterfrack…’

36 Responses to “Courage”

Of course, there might have been some ‘courage’ if that’s what you want to call it, had the Catholic hierarchy spontaneously admitted what they were doing at a time when there was no danger of it being uncovered. There is perhaps, some courage in admitting to being the perpetrator of a horrendous crime if you honestly believe you won’t otherwise be caught.

But of course the Catholic hierarchy admitted what had gone on at the Industrial ‘Schools’ in Ireland only when the weight of evidence coming to light became so overwhelming that it became impossible to deny them without appearing absurd*

*And, if one’s being really cynical, at the point where continued denial would weaken the organisation more than admission… They still want to run schools, after all

Absolutely. The faithful are frantically looking for a way to frame this. From Mary Kenny explaining that a lot of priests are amusing companions, to Bill Donoghue claiming that the victims were delinquents now moaning about a strict but understandable regime where only 12% were actually physically raped – and not all by ordained priests, through to this frock trying to find a way to make this horror add to their moral authority. We got caught, ain’t we courageous.

Do these people actually believe in hell? They certainly claimed to when victims were threatened with excommunication if they took it outside the church. A theology in which child victims spend eternity in hell for complaining, while abusers confess to their mates and get a first class ticket to heaven. Where, according to Tertullian, they get to relax by watching the condemned being tormented.

This is interesting because part of the Catholic church’s self-image at this time is that it is the great defender of the weak and vulnerable and disregarded – such as the aborted fetus and the comatose adult in a permanent vegetative state.

Thanks Ophelia. Keep making the connexion. Don’t let these bastards go! (There, you’ve got me using the word!) I listened to this on the TV with a sense of apoplectic horror. How dare these weasily befrocked self-righteous men make any claims to any of the virtues?! The mind does truly reel with disbelief and disgust.

I’m willing to bet than many of the offenders and perpetrators of these horrors were amusing companions. Where do the apologists get this shallow idiocy? And did Donoghue not read any of the reports? Children were sent to these institutions in infancy, taken from single mothers, women who separated from their abusive husbands! Delinquents! God damn them! There should be a hell for the likes of Kenny, Nichols, Donoghue, and the rest of the simpering, lily-livered fakes, and all these monstrous child abusers, and a silly God to put them there! Why do people still take this institution seriously?

However, it needs to be said: this is why the catholic church has decided to stand up for the voiceless – foetuses and the dying. Real vulnerable people can tell them to go to hell. It’s a great way to make people think they stand for something, when they don’t. I am so disgusted, as I was after the Mount Cashel abuse in Newfoundland, that one wonders why anyone, anywhere, has the nerve disdainfully to call Hitchens a village atheist. We need to say it loud and clear, and Nichols has confirmed it: RELIGION POISONS EVERYTHING!

Dammit, just when we were finally rid of Cormac Murphy O’Conman (sic)[aka “The Paedophile’s Friend”], we get another sanctimonious biscuit-muncher who wants to wring his hands while trying to persuade us how difficult it’s all been for his fellow self-appointed ‘moral guardians’.

“quite frankly, corporal punishment was not exactly unknown in many homes during these times, and this is doubly true when dealing with miscreants…But, of course, there is a huge market for such distortions, especially when the accused is the Catholic Church.”

I aplaud your condemnation of the R.C church O.B but I think the nazi comparison was a bit much. The evils perpertated by the nazi,s were unique in human history and are only downgraded by comparing them with the awfull abuse of the industrial schools.

Richard, you are right. I would add that the Nazi crimes were institutionalised as the GOALS of the organisation. These crimes represent a proportion of the people of the organisation betraying its goals.

A comparison with the Nazis is perhaps a bit steep… but. I don’t think this is the organisation betraying its goals. The goals of the church are very equivocal, as Archbishop Nichols’ self-congratulating reply clearly reveals. In power, the church has almost always been a human rights disaster, and has cared more for the institution than for people. Out of power the church has adopted the rhetoric of compassion, its power abated somewhat for the sake of public relations. To suggest for one moment that the institutional goals of the church were or are righteousness or goodness, and that its uses of power are just deformations of that original righteousness, is going way beyond the evidence. Indeed, the catholic church was (and still is, when it gets the chance) a supporter of fascist and dictatorial regimes.

Relevant to that last comment is this paragraphy from today’s (Friday, 22 May) Irish Times (linked by OB):

The key to understanding these attitudes is surely to realise that abuse was not a failure of the system. It was the system. Terror was both the point of these institutions and their standard operating procedure. Their function in Irish society was to impose social control, particularly on the poor, by acting as a threat. Without the horror of an institution like Letterfrack, it could not fulfil that function. Within the institutions, terror was systematic and deliberate. It was a methodology handed down through “successive generations of Brothers, priests and nuns”.

Consider that the terror used was used against children, often very young children. It was, to use Madelaine Buntings’ catalogue of terms (CiF, 22 May), “systemic, pervasive, chronic, excessive, arbitrary, endemic.” It was known to religious leaders, religious leaders who are still as self-serving as they were, since they do not have the courage to bring the criminals to justice or to indemnify those who were harmed. They even have the temerity to speak of their own courage! In what way is this callous disregard for the humanity of its victims not similar in kind (if not in scope) to the villainy of the Nazis?

This is an organisation that is still quite prepared to terrorise people with excommunication for carrying out humane and necessary care, that refuses to permit deviation in thought from a teaching authority that does not consider logic or reason adequate to call into question any of its pronouncements, and which is willing to make peace with any absolutism in order to maintain its own control over its subordinate millions.

Even Madelaine Bunting is asking how long she can hold on. But to suggest, as she does, “that institutional survival has come at the cost of everything it purports to believe,” is ludicrous. The very structure of the system of catholic belief is authoritarian and abusive. In such a regime humanity must always take second place to the preservation of institutional authority. The catholic ‘pro-life’ stand (so-called) is precisely an attempt to do this without appearing to continue the old inhumanity, but this stand is premised on inhumanity, and perpetuates the same mindless obedience that was inculcated into the children of the Irish children’s gulag archipelago with a similar unheeding harshness. Pius XII’s admiration for Hitler was not a mistake.

“More than 30,000 children, most of them delinquents, passed through one or more of Ireland’s Catholic-run institutions from the 1920s through the 1980s.”

Note: “delinquents” and passed through “one or more”

The so called delinquents could have been boys who ‘mitched’ from their schools, or they could have robbed apples from orchards.

Using the word “delinquents” here is on a parallel to the word “courage” used by Nicholls. They both reflect “goodness” back to the church and badness of the children.

The writer of the article is also trying to send out the message that the “delinquents” were in only “one or more” institutions, so as to bring home to ireaders’ the insignificance of the hype created by this child abuse report of the children in only one or more institution.

Throughout the history of the Irish State the RC church has tried to get its own way with respect of children. One example: In 1951 the Catholic Hierarchy condemned the ‘Mother and Child’ scheme which would have provided direct funding to expectant mothers for their children; Dr Noel Browne, Minister for Health, resigned from the government because the scheme was abandoned on 6 April.

I am momentarily too distraught to read the report.

Nonetheless, from a brief glimpse of coverage I was grossly perturbed to read that Artane’s Christian Brothers’ were allegedly sending 80% of (either, monthly or two monthly) Government Capitation Grants to Rome.

Carysfort College received Captitation grants from the Sisters of Mercy’s industrial schools.

I am listening to the radio while writing this and I hear that the Sisters of Mercy sold Carysfort College for a whopping €20 million.

Children’s parent/s, I must add, paid for the children in the institutions.

There is a difference – a big difference – between saying the people who ran industrial schools were just like Nazis, and saying the archbishop’s talk of courage reminds me of Himmler’s use of rhetoric about battles.

Believe me, it was a holocaust of abuse that occurred to children in industrial school institutions in Ireland. Children like Anne Frank (Belsen) was relieved of her suffering when she died of typhoid in Belsen Concentration Camp. Children in institutions would have wished to have died in order to have been taken out of their pain. Prior to AF’s incarceration she would have known normalcy and utter love in her life and that must have helped her somewhat with respect of survival mechanisms in the camp. Children in industrial schools rocked themselves against walls to soothe and stroke themselves – the walls acted as survival mechanisms for them.

” I would add that the Nazi crimes were institutionalised as the GOALS of the organisation. These crimes represent a proportion of the people of the organisation betraying its goals.”

What are these goals that were “betrayed”? Either you’re talking about the functional goals, or the intention. The former are perfectly in line with the Church’s behavior — amassing power and wealth. The latter are also in line with this behavior — “saving souls” instead of saving human beings.

This kind of behavior is practically implied by a theology that teaches that the body is sinful and dirty, and the only thing of true value is salvation in an afterlife. Then, rape can be thought of as the moral equivalent of a loss of impulse control, like getting drunk, while challenging the authorities of clerics actually endangers your “eternal soul”. The former, just a pecadillo; the latter, a crime of universal proportions.

From there, the “sinfulness” of a priest getting married openly is actually much, much worse than raping a defenseless child privately.

No, this story is perfectly consistent with the organization’s historic goals. The distinction you can make is that the crimes aren’t necessary to the goals (unlike say the Nazis), but they aren’t a betrayal either. The betrayal is that the crimes became public, since that risks the eternal damnation of those who may lose their faith in the organization.

And now you know why the archbishop’s statements made perfect sense to him.

Children called out to Christ to he[p them when they were put in a Goldenbridge industrial tumble-drier, or were threatened with being put in to one.

Children called out to Christ to help them when they were put into dark holes for long hours in St Georges’ Good Shepherd industrial school, or when their bodies were tied in calico to stop them from growing.

Children called out to Christ to help them when they were left sitting on potties all day by staff. So long, that their entrails all hung out.

Children cried out to Christ to help them when they were forced to stand naked while they awaited their turn to be painted and ridiculed by staff.

Children cried out to Christ to help them to understand why they were personally chosen to offer up their young lives to the industrial school system.

Children cried out to Christ to ask him why they had no books to read and why they could not enjoy education like other people in the world.

Children cried out to Christ to help them when they were beaten by staff because they cried. This was because their mother had just died and they found themselves isolated in an industrial school.

Children cried out to Christ to help them when they were laid out naked on cold steps of stairs while one of Christ’s brother’s stamped and held their hands in place while another flogged them to bits.

Children cried out in pain for Christ to help them not to wake up as the thought of the head honcho of Goldenbridge flogging them before the start of each day of their lives was too unbearable.

Christ never listened.

Christ never heard the cries of the poor.

Christ never came to their aid.

Christ never held their hands or loved them as they had been duped into believing he would.

Christ, what a Christian he was indeed! He was never there when he was so desperately needed by suffering children in Irelands industrial schools…

It is all about them, them them all the time and THEIR weaknesses and the toughness of the road THEY have to face – not about the people they have damaged so much and about how tough the road it was/is that they had/have to face for the rest of their lives.

One can’t help but wonder just how much more bulk there is beneath this iceberg tip, how many other similar tragedies a clear-eyed reading of history will one day lay at the foot of the Roman Catholic Church.

Of course, an even more terrifying prospect is what will happen if the “post-secular” era championed by the Eaglefishes of the world comes to pass. If you want a vision of the future, imagine a man in a cassock rogering a terrified child’s bum–forever.

Of course, we maybe shouldn’t be terribly surprised at the vileness of what Mr. Nichols has been saying – he has, after all, been promoted to a senior position in an organisation not exactly known for contrition, openness, humility, tolerance, moderation or rational behaviour historically.

Maybe he thought that with everyone over here so furious with bankers and politicians, the catholic church needed to get back up there in the ‘public hate’ stakes?

The minute the Popes/priests/leaders of this three thousand year old religion decreed that priests had to remain celibate was the minute which was to both define the catholic church and B) to set in tow the iniquitous brutalizing of children. What is a man to do in the prime of his life when all those raging hormones at at their height, yet sex with women is illegal as defined by the catholic hierarchy? Of course the bums of little boys become wonderful. They are very young and not likely to get pregnant.

A church which about three thousand years ago appropriated a few bits and pieces from a Hebrew book of words,prior to starting its own religion and thought it a smart move to do so founded on a set of rules telling the mentally challenged what not to do.

A religion-if there has to be one-would make for greater harmony if it said Be kind, be thoughtful et al.

It is very satisfying to vent one’s spleen on the idiotic catholic church, but if the church’s hierarchy hasn’t woken up to a tinsy wincy little feeling that all is not well within the ranks could only mean one of two things. 1)The hierarchy, from the Pope downwards is terminally stupid- possible but unlikely. 2)The church’s quaint philosophy has created a ruling caste predicated on THE MOST GROTESQUE HUNGER TO HANG ONTO POWER the world has ever seen.

The Catholic Church is an evil institution. It is dedicated to keeping women as third class citizens. It allows buggery of small boys in order TO FOSTER PRIESTS to partake of this form of sex; because women have been cut out of the system in the first place.

It is a ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ state of being which is diametrically opposed to everything modern man has deemed to be philosophically moral. All men are created equal, etc.

Yet such would be the reduction of power by accepting a few twenty-first century moral imperatives, the Church refuses to do anything else but cling to the past.

Whilst admiring the passion and eloquence which has been evident in these pages, and as a radical Atheist my sympathies are entirely with you.

However, the church has had decades of this anger and cares not one whit about it. Nor will it, until the opposition gets a lot more organized, smarter and gets together to pay for clever lawyers to tackle this evil religion and bring it to a halt, or make it relevant to today’s people.

Well sometimes one just wants/needs to express rage; that doesn’t preclude reason and argument, it can just run alongside it. Don’t worry, there’s more argument in our book (Jeremy’s and mine), due out in a week. The Catholic church (and specifically the Vatican) has a starring role.

Yeah, the poor priests and religious need lots of courageous words spoken to them by their superiors at this moment in time, in order to help them to face all their trials and tribulations.

The Christian Brothers already knew in the past that sexual abuse of children in institutions was not acceptable behaviour. There is documentation in the Vatican appertaining to this fact. A barrister acting on behalf of a client at the CICA gave supported evidence to it pointing out this knowledge. The religious always ascertained that having relationships with women was less dangerous than peadophilia. In one sense, I would reckon, that they knew they would be caught much quicker with females adults, who would stand out much more than would inconsequential institutional children.

Exactly, they were warehouses to be sure and the religious decided when children could be stripped naked and lined up together, irrespective of age, to paint them with stinging paint-like substance. If children had stains on their underclothes they were hung up on poles in disgrace or they were forced to go around all day in their soiled clothing as punishment. Children, who wet their beds had to make a circle around the school rostrum while the religious head honcho sat there and lorded down on them and reminded them of the lowly status of them and also made derogatory statements about their mothers or fathers, if there happened to be fathers in the family equations. Their sheets were held up high in the arms of the children for long lengths of time while all this degradation was going on, which was every morning of their young lives. Some children got out of this mortification by staying awake all night so as not to wet their beds, or they were naughty and robbed the dry sheets of other children in order to avoid punishment. This was Goldenbridge and I do not need to read the report to inform my mind on these despicable acts as they are already etched forever in my brain.

No, Richard, a shackled brain knows no rest. But I do manage to plod on through thick and thin, despite everything. I really have no other option, I guess, other than to give up and lay down and die, like so many of those who grew up in similar circumstances, unfortunately, did, indeed. I try so utterly had to channel the negativity that frequently lands in my direction, (like a thief in the night, when it presents its miserable self and I am caught unawares. In times like these life can be very difficult and ever so lonely.) into a more positive one, by learning new things.

It has helped enormously that the truth has finally emerged in the recent Ryan Report (formerly Laffoy)

It is also such a relief to know that we have been vindicated by the Ryan Report.

As you know, from all the stories, throughout the years, that OB put up on her site I never went through it alone. Thank you B&W, for highlighting the atrocities that occurred in Goldenbridge Industrial School, Dublin, Eire.